La Comédie Française or le Théâtre
Français -- the French national theater -- was founded in 1680
in Paris by merging three existing companies: the Hôtel de Bourgogne,
the Théâtre du Marais, and the troupe of Molière. It is
organized cooperatively, according to the original charter granted by Louis
XIV and revised by Napoleon. From its inception the company has had a
tumultuous existence. During the French Revolution the Comédie
Française split into two rival factions. In 1803 it was reconstituted.
As recently as 1945 and 1959 internal problems necessitated reforms in its
charter. It is still noted for its productions of classical French drama.

Molière
{mohl-yair'}, whose real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin, composed 12
of the most durable and penetratingly satirical full-length comedies
of all time, some in rhyming verse, some in prose, as well as six
shorter farces and comedies. As a comic dramatist he ranks with such
other distinctive masters of the genre as Aristophanes, Plautus, and
George Bernard Shaw. He was also the leading French comic actor,
stage director, and dramatic theoretician of the 17th century. In a theatrical period, the early
baroque, dominated by the formal neoclassical tragedies of Mairet,
Rotrou, du Ryer, Pierre and Thomas Corneille, and Racine,
Molière affirmed the potency of comedy as a serious, flexible
art form. He also wrote a number of pastorals and other indoor and
outdoor divertissements, such as his popular comedy-ballets, that
depended on a formidable array of stage machinery (mostly imported
from Italy) capable of providing swift and startling changes of
sumptuous scenic effects.

He was born on Jan.
15, 1622, to Marie and Jean Poquelin; his father was a Parisian
furniture merchant and upholsterer to the king. Jean Baptiste
received his early education at the College de Clermont, a Jesuit
school, becoming a promising scholar of Latin and Greek. Although he
proceeded to study law and was awarded his law degree in 1642, he
turned away from both the legal profession and his father's business.
Instead, he incorporated (1643) an acting troupe, the Illustre
Theatre, in collaboration with the Bejart family, probably because he
had fallen in love with their oldest daughter, Madeleine Bejart, who
became his mistress. At roughly the same time he also acquired the
pseudonym Molière. With this company, Molière played an
unsuccessful season in Paris and went bankrupt, then left to tour the
provinces, primarily in southern and southwestern France, from about
1646 to 1658. During these 12 years he polished his skills as actor,
director, administrator, and playwright. In 1658 the troupe returned
to Paris and played before Louis XIV. The king's brother became
Molière's patron; later Molière and his colleagues were
appointed official providers of entertainment to the Sun King
himself.

In the following 24
years, starting with The Precious Maidens Ridiculed (1659),
which established him as the most popular comic playwright of the
day, and ending with The Imaginary Invalid (1673),
Molière advanced from being a gifted adapter of
Italian-derived sketches and a showman who put on extravaganzas to a
writer whose best plays had the lasting impact of tragedies.
Unwittingly, he made many enemies. The clergy mistakenly believed
that certain of his plays were attacks on the church. Other playwrights resented
his continual experiments with comic forms (as in The School for
Wives) and with verse (as in Amphitryon). Famous
tragedians such as Montfleury and Hauteroche envied his success with
the public and the royal protection he enjoyed. Molière
responded by incorporating some of his detractors into his comedies
as buffoons and ineffectuals.

In 1662 he married
Armande Béjart, a 19-year-old actress who was either
Madeleine's sister or (as some of the playwright's rivals claimed)
her daughter by Molière. They had one child, Esprit-Madeleine,
born in 1665. The marriage led to more than one separation and
reconciliation between the playwright and his wife, who was 21 years
his junior.

In the late 1660s,
Molière developed a lung ailment from which he never
recovered, although he continued to write, act, direct, and manage
his troupe as energetically as before. He finally collapsed on Feb.
17, 1673, after the fourth performance of The Imaginary Invalid, and
died at home that evening. Four days later, on the night of February
21, he was interred in Saint Joseph's Cemetery. Church leaders
refused to officiate or to grant his body a formal burial. Seven
years later the king united Molière's company with one of its
competitors; since that time the French national theater, the
Comédie Francaise, has been known as the House of
Molière.

The strongest
influence on Molière's theater came from the Italian
commedia dell'arte troupes -- with their stock characters and
situations -- that he encountered during his travels. This influence
was enhanced by Molière's sharing of the Théâtre
du Petit-Bourbon in Paris with the Italian Players, led by the
celebrated Scaramouche. In his longer comedies, Molière
immensely refined the commedia themes and techniques, setting
most of his plots in and around Paris and raising neoclassical French
comedy to a plane of artistry and inventiveness never attained before
or since. He applied the alexandrine , or rhymed hexameter
line -- borrowed from contemporary tragedies, many of which he had
staged -- to a relaxed dialogue that imitated conversational speech.
He also created a gallery of incisive portraits: Tartuffe the
religious hypocrite, and Orgon, his dupe; Jourdain the social
climber; Don Juan the rebel and libertine; cuckolds such as Arnolphe,
Dandin, and Amphitryon; Alceste the stony idealist; Harpagon the
miser; Scapin the trickster; Argan the hypochondriac; Philaminte the
pretentiously cultured lady; and many more.

Molière's
principal short plays (in one or two acts) are: The Jealous
Husband (1645?), The Flying Doctor (1648?),
Sganarelle (1660), The Rehearsal at Versailles (1663),
and The Forced Marriage (1664); the longer plays (in three or
five acts) include The School for Husbands (1661), The
School for Wives (1662), Tartuffe (1664), Don Juan
(1665), The Misanthrope (1666), The Doctor in Spite of
Himself (1666), Amphitryon (1668), The Miser
(1668), George Dandin (1668), The Bourgeois Gentleman
(1670), Scapin (1671), The Learned Ladies (1672), and
The Imaginary Invalid (1673).